Mechanical properties of a new type recycled aggregate concrete interlocking hollow block masonry

Abstract

Considering the advantages of energy conservation and reducing the construction skill requirement of the workers, a new type of interlocking hollow block using recycled aggregates concrete (IHB-RAC) with the compressive strength up to 10 Mpa was proposed, which could help improve more than 56% of the construction efficiency compared to commonly used concrete hollow blocks. In order to study the mechanical properties and promote the application of this new type block in building engineering, the masonries considering different strengths of mortar and the concrete used in the grouting holes were designed, and the corresponding compressive and shear strength, as well as the failure mode of the masonries were studied according to the test results. Then, experimental results were compared with the calculated values obtained from Chinese code GB50003-2011 to check the suitability of the standards. In order to make an accurate prediction of the compressive strength of the masonry, modifying coefficients were suggested considering the positive contributions of the connecting keys. In addition, according to the test results, an appropriate calculation method for accurately predicting the shear strength of the grouted IHB-RAC masonry was proposed by separately considering the effort of the mortar and the grouting hole concrete.